mrdct

Under EBU rules (refer section 6.2), the awarding of 30% score for a "Red Psyche" only arises when the tournament director finds that the partnership has an "unauthorised - and therefore illegal - understanding". Such a finding carries with it a fairly clear, imho, implication that the pair are cheating (i.e. playing with concealed partnership understandings). The EBU rules further state that "in the majority of cases the TD will find nothing untoward and classify it as a "Green Psyche". The EBU also have a thing called an "Amber Psyche", that seems to be the situation where the TD suspects that there may be an unauthorised understanding, but the evidence isn't strong enough to warrant an adjusted score. I would suggest that to establish that an unauthorised understanding exists, the action taken by the player that "fielded" the psyche needs to be an action outside of the "logical alternatives" that a player of that level of competence would ordinarily consider. In this case, "pass" is clearly a "logical alternative" that has at least some rational bridge arguments in its favour.

One swallow doesn't make a summer. Make a note of it and see if this partnership have further similar occurences. There is no specific law against fielding a psyche, just the general duty of disclosure to the opps of your methods and understandings. If they frequently psyche, particularly in 1st seat white vs. white, then that should be disclosed. If it's a one-off bid in an irrational attempt to recover from a previous bad board, then they do so at their own peril. I would be interested to know if the guy who passed 1NT had taken similar actions in the past and found his partner with a genuine opening hand. The pass of 1NT isn't a totally ridiculous bid. He may have taken the view that if his RHO has a strong NT, his side wont have much chance of making game, so why not have a crack at defending 1NT on a lead that declarer may not be anticipating rather than doubling and allowing the opponents to find their ♦ fit which may well play better than NT. Personally I would double then bid 2♠ after the opps find 2♦ - but I don't think "pass" necessarily indicates that any funny business is going on.

I just tested it in 3.7.1. and it is now in a much more convenient position, just at the bottom of the chat bar on my machine. Thanks Fred.

A common issue that I am encountering when speaking to tournament organisers about potential vugraph arrangements is security. I would be very interested to hear about measures employed in different tournaments to mitigate the risk of security breaches. For example, mobile phone possession and/or use, toilet/smoking breaks, delayed starts, different boards in use for the vugraph match, etc. I often wonder how much of an issue security really is. Is anyone aware of any actual instances where a player has covertly received information about upcoming hands sourced from a live vugraph presentation?

For two of the segments of a vugraph presentation I recently ran, I had a second operator in the closed room covering the action in "invisible" mode. The procedure I followed was (and thanks to Uday for his last minute advice on how to do this): 1. Load the .dup file in the usual way in the open room, but specifiy that coverage is only for the open room ("O"). 2. Login to BBO as a vugraph operator in the open room and start the presentation. 3. Once the open room coverage has commenced, have the second vugraph operator login in "invisible" mode and go into the vugraph theatre and click on the open room presentation that has just started. The second operator will then be prompted to commence coverage of the closed room. Doing the coverage in this way had the following advantages: 1. The second operator (who was a trainee) could practice without the presure of people watching, with the initial focus mainly on getting the auction, lead and claim right. 2. Closed room comparisons automatically came through to the open room without the open room operator needing to manually enter any closed room data. 3. Reduced load on the BBO servers as spectators wont be going back and forth between the two rooms. 4. Reduced commentator requirements as only one room needs commentators, but commentators are still able to review what has happened in the closed room through "Movie" and make comments as to why a contract failed or succeeded in the closed room. 5. The LIN files at the end of the match have a complete record of everything that happened in both rooms in a single file for each segment, completely eliminating the need for manual recorders in either room where required by the convening NCBO.

For the recent vugraph presentation that I ran, I sat on a bar-stool at the SE corner of the table (stradling the screen) to get a nice clear view of the table. Prior to the presentation, I built a simple lectern to put my laptop on. Nothing fancy - just two pieces of chipboard cut to 500mm x 250mm connected with four 900mm legs. I put it all together with 8 long nails and it really was quite stable. It took about 5 minutes to make which I did in the carpark of the DIY centre (Bunnings) on the morning of my vugraph presentation. The materials cost less that A$5.

I have nothing against making kibitzers silent, indeed I think that should be their default state. Perhaps the feature that exists in vugraph for the operator to "gag" or "ungag" specific kibitzers should be made available to table hosts or tournament directors (possibly even any player at the table). That way, if a kibitzer is generally there to watch but might want to engage in the occasional conversation with a player in between hands and isn't upsetting anyone, let them be. With regards to Dwingo's reference to "the right to bring your kibitzers along when you play a tourney". Of course players have that right. When I first learnt to play bridge some 20 years ago, my teacher routinely had half-a-dozen of his students watching him in local tournaments, and I was usually one of them.

The problem is that this is just the thin edge of the wedge. Once we start eroding kibitzer rights who knows where it is going to stop? Also, it isn't immediately apparent when looking at the list of upcoming tournament which ones will ban kibitzers. What happens if I ask around, find a partner, go to register and then find that kibitzers aren't allowed? - I just wasted my time and the time of the person I have organised to play with. Or even worse, what happens if I enter a tournament without realising that kibitzers have been banned and need to leave that tournament on moral grounds? - Will I then be tagged as a tournament deserter? Someone needs to take a stand against small-minded paranoid tournament directors who are ruining BBO by banning kibitzers in explicit contravention of the Laws of Bridge. Banning kibitzers should not be an option anywhere at BBO.

I have received a lot of enquiries from people as to the post factum availability of vugraph commentary. My standard answer is to tell them to enable the logging of "chat" through their personal BBO options. However, when going through the commentary after the event, it can be hard at times to work out which hand the commentators were talking about. One solution would be for the operator to type in a comment like "Board 21 coming up" or just "Brd21" at or about the time he/she redeals. However, the vugraph operator often has a million things on their mind and may forget to do this. A better solution might be for the software to automatically generate a system chat comment of "Board 21 coming up" every time the vugraph operator "redeals" to a new board. Similar software enhancements could include system generated chat comments for changes in the score and number of boards remaining.

oops - posted twice for some reason.

Thanks for that. I have now fixed the file for session 5. All 6 files on the VBA website work properly. I've also added a few photos - http://www.vba.asn.au/VicOp.html

I would refuse to play in any tournament that disallows kibitzers. Any self-respecting player should do the same. Everything possible should be done to encourage kibitzers.

The LIN files for this weekend's Victorian Open Team Playoff are on the VBA website: http://www.vba.asn.au/VicOp.html There is a slight problem with the file for session 5 where board 11 was passed in at both tables, but when you open the LIN file, no data appears in the scoresheet for boards 12-16. You can still look at those hands OK, but the running score doesn't change after board 11. If anyone has the capabilities of fixing this I would be most appreciative.

This is only a problem for vugraph operators using sub-notebook computers with a narrow (typically 16:9) screen. I use a Fujitsu Lifebook P1110 at the table which is an ideal size as it's compact size enables me to peer over the screen very easily to see the bids and plays. The problem I have is that when I "redeal" (which is how the operator advances to the next board) the pop-up window into which the operator needs to enter the next board number comes up too low to either enter the board number or click OK to the default. It would be useful if the pop-up appeared just a little bit higher (or even in the middle of the screen) so I don't have to grab the top of it, move it up, and then select the next board. Also, as far as this forum is concerned, it may be useful to have a sub-forum for vugraph operators to share experiences, ideas, problems and techniques.

I have two suggestions with regards to the "Movie" window when watching or running a vugraph presentation: 1. At present the results of only 15 boards can be seen at once. With many (if not most) matches being played in sets of 16, it would be very useful if an extra row could be squeezed in so you could see all boards in the set without having to scroll around. Alternatively, it would be useful if the "Movie" window could be manually resized such that it automatically creates the extra rows. 2. At the moment, the running total for the session in the "Movie" window is only visable when you are fully scrolled to the top. If you scroll down to see boards beyond 15, the running total for the session disappears. I think the running total should be visable even after you scroll down.

I don't fully appreciate the link between kibitzers and cheating. If a pair are going to cheat, surely there are more efficient and less overt means of doing so than having kibitzers planted to convey information to them. I think it is most unfair to tarnish kibitzers with implied allegations of involvement in cheating. As to the so-called countries known to have a high prevalence of cheating. I'm with Ron on this one, I think the suggestion is quite offensive. Could it be that one of the two countries "Free" mentioned just happens to have a very high participation level at BBO and contains a lot of bloody good bridge players that can and do find the "miracle" plays with greater frequency than us mere mortals?

If you think your opponents are communicating with a kibitzer to cheat against you (which I must say sounds extremely far-fetched) then the major problem is the people you are playing against, not the kibitzer. As for the situation of disliking the kibitzer (or the kibitzer's nationality) - live with it. There is far too much hate and prejudice in the world already - we don't need it at the bridge table. If the kibitzer obeys Law 76 you wont notice that they are there and if they breach Law 76, you have cause to have them removed. If I was convening an event where one country refused to play against another country, I would simply kick that team out of the event. I continue to believe that the BBO environment should remain as kibitzer friendly as possible.

There is nothing in the Laws of Bridge that gives a player the right to force a kibitzer to leave the table. Provided the kibitzer remains compliant with Law 76 (basically be inconspicuous to the players at the table) I believe it would be most inappropriate for players in a tournament to have a right to eject a kibitzer who is just minding his own business. I am aware that some NCBOs (e.g. the ACBL) have in specific tournament regulations a right for players to remove one kibitzer without reason - but I believe such regulations are manifestly inappropriate. Kibitzing good players is an ideal way to improve one's game and there should be no obstacle to it. If a software modification is made to BBO to allow players to eject an unwanted kibitzer, the capability to do it should only be active if the kibitzer has breached Law 76 by contributing to the chat in the room.